| TED SPEAKS...ABOUT DEBT |
| I'M EASY...or Hooked on Credit |
My friend is what you
would call "easy." Back in 1983, he bought his wife an
electronic sewing machine. The man was earning only $4.50 an hour
at the time. He knew he couldn’t afford the appliance, so he
charged it. His rationale was that the new machine, in time,
would pay for itself by preventing him and his wife from amassing
additional merchandise (clothes, drapes, gifts) which they also
couldn’t afford.
You know the story. They amassed them anyway. Other purchases
followed. New accounts were opened. The unpaid balances grew, as
did the interest. Their sewing machine would to have to put in a
lot of overtime just to pull its weight. As it turned out, my
friend was the one doing the overtime. All the while, his
wife’s machine did what he wished he
could have done: It stayed home and rested.
Nothing takes the sting out of making value judgments as
effectively as credit. How a little power corrupts the senses!
It's amazing how many things in life are suddenly important to us
once we realize that they can be ours upon demand. The bank sends
us a letter of approval, the department store flashes us a green
light, and our priorities shift gears practically overnight. Hats
off to that plastical-magical card that not only entices us with
the aroma of goods we once beheld from afar, but places the meat
right in our plates---today!
Why do we buy into this dream?
Do we believe that our debts will slip into some cosmic worm hole
if cast far enough into the future? Perhaps we imagine that
working and paying bills will take on a sweet savor of hilarity
somewhere across that vast, make-believe gulf that separates
"now” from “later”. Or that the taste of
tomorrow’s prizes today will prove to be the elusive
console-all hitherto missing in our life’s bland endeavors.
Besides, cost isn't something we can reasonably reckon with these
days, what with the economy the way it is. Who in his right mind
can expect to own or enjoy anything in his lifetime if he waits
until he could afford it? So we reason.
We're baited and prodded at every turn by glossy ads and sales
pitches until what is desirable versus what is necessary is no
longer the clear cut issue it used to be. Shop…dine…entertain…escape!
Take that trip! Wear that outfit! Buy that stereo! Renovate that
house! Be a hero at Christmas! The world
waves a laminated crown before our eyes, and we don it with
gladness. For us, all things are necessary in a world that says
all things are possible. That's just the way we are.
How quickly, though, the
value of merchandise diminishes once we get used to thinking of
it as our own. As for the services we’ve charged, who can
even remember what they were? Doesn't it seem perverse to be
making payments on a set of furniture you’ve already grown
tired of looking at? Or on a pair of shoes you threw out a year
ago? How about paying for the repair of a car you no longer own?
And can last month’s dinner for four justify having to drag
your decrepit body into work at 6:00 AM on a Sunday so that you
can cash in on the overtime?
The problem with credit is the inverted logic of “REAP
FIRST, SOW LATER." Once a person accepts the prize in
advance of his labors, all that remains is a disembodied debt.
His goals now own him.
He has become the property of his own purposes, the slave and
victim of his own lifestyle.
There are times when I wish I could give back everything I've
ever charged in exchange for a debt-free existence. What madness!
Even supposing that former transactions could be undone, what
tangible effects could any of us possibly give back, or bear to
part with at this point? What would we wear? What would we drive?
Merchandise and services become absorbed into our sense of
ownership long before they're paid for. They define who we are,
or what we imagine ourselves to be. Truth is, it's all but
impossible these days for most of us to do business without
credit.
Not so with my father-in-law. The man swears by his cash.
Everything he has ever owned, he has paid for up front. He
charges nothing, he owes nothing. He’s one of the few
individuals I know whose vision never ran afoul of his budget,
and whose sense of what was necessary and desirable has always
been tempered by contentment for what he could achieve in his own
strength. In all fairness, I must point out that the man began
working and raising a family back in the days when it was still
economically feasible to be one’s own person. And he grew
old before it was advantageous to be anyone else’s.
May the man never see the day when he needs to take out a loan,
for I doubt there's a bank or lending institution anywhere that
would extend him credit today. Why? Because settling ones debts
with cash, which was once a virtue, is anathema in today’s
economy of procrastination. The economy has no use for staunch
individualists like my father-in-law who keep their accounts
spotless. Were he to start life over today, he wouldn’t
survive. It’s a sad day, he’d tell you, when a
man’s character is approved on the basis of how much money
he owes!
Paying on time spoils as surely as it saves. My friends
discovered that when they bought their sewing machine. They never
realized how much they needed a credit card until they got that
first one and started using it. They never realized how
inadequate one card was until they had several to rely upon. The
more they used them, the more they owed on them. The higher their
monthly payments, the disposable less cash they had to meet their
other needs. Soon, they were charging everything from gas to
groceries to medical bills, even rent when they were desperate.
Now and again they would borrow from VISA to pay toward their
other credit cards. Once they actually borrowed from VISA to pay
VISA.
Their combined income, I'm happy to report, has grown
considerably since the days of the sewing machine. So have their
appetites. They've cut up several batches of cards, then rewarded
themselves by applying for a single low-interest card (or two, or
three at the most) to be used "only when necessary."
They respect themselves now because they imagine they've brought
their debts under control. The banks also respect them. Why?
Because they're easy.
It's a wise man who anticipates a hangover before he drinks, or
who can remember the last one without having to relive it.
Resolutions made on the "morning after" are cheap and
easy to make. So, too, it would be simple for us renounce our
love of material acquisitions and expensive pastimes after we'd
had our fill of them, after we'd gotten ourselves slavishly into
debt. But that feeling of fullness rarely overtakes us. If we
persuade ourselves that a limited indulgence in allowable, or
that certain acquisitions are necessary for survival, then how
much is enough? Exactly when does one more little drink become
one too many? Wolfish excess is too often clothed in sheepish
moderation. It may be the stress and grind of living beyond our
means, of working for goals with which we can no longer identify,
that gives us consumers that lean and hungry edge---and the
gnawing sense of incompleteness that the economy thrives on.
"Enough!" we cry in a moment of sober passion. And yet,
no sooner does the old desire ferment than three new ones spring
up to take its place. We look the dragon squarely in the teeth
and strike yet another pact. The system may have seduced us. But
it’s a system made in our image.
I cannot condemn; I can only confess. As you may have guessed by now, I've been talking about myself this entire time.
On paper, I’m a critic. In the marketplace, I’m easy.
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